Follow by Email

Monday, 23 June 2014

Defence and crown battle over evidence admissibility on first day of Del Mastro trial

The Dean Del Mastro trial opened Monday in a courthouse in
Peterborough, Ontario, with crown prosecutor Tom Lemon and defence attorney Jeffery
Ayotte embarking on a day-long sparring match over the admissibility of
electronic evidence.

Dean Del Mastro in court

In the end, Justice Lisa Cameron decided to adjourn early and
make a ruling in the morning.

Del Mastro, the federal Member of Parliament for Peterborough,
and Richard McCarthy, the official agent on Del Mastro’s 2008 election campaign,
are charged with overspending during the campaign and then covering up the alleged
misdeed.

In his opening statements Mr. Lemon asserted that the crown
would prove that Mr. Del Mastro backdated a cheque for $21,000 to Holinshed, a
polling company owned by Frank Hall, to make it look like it was written in
August when it was written in October. The crown further claimed that evidence
from the RCMP would prove that Del Mastro did not have the resources in his
account in August.

The Del Mastro campaign’s return to Elections Canada
reported paying only $1,575 for Holinshed’s work. In total, the crown alleges
that Del Mastro and McCarthy overspent the campaign limit of $92,567 by $17,850
during the 2008 campaign, and that they then falsified documentation submitted
to Elections Canada. As a federal candidate, Del Mastro’s contribution limit to
his own campaign was $2,100.

Frank Hall was the only witness called to the stand on Monday.
He is expected to give evidence for the next two days. It might take longer: the
proceedings got bogged down early when the defence team challenged the crown’s
use of a binder full of printed emails and invoices.

So far, both the defence and the prosecution appear to have
stayed onside with Justice Cameron, who was a paragon of patience during the
defence’s repeated challenges and the crown’s ponderous, even plodding,
approach to the proceedings.

After rejecting the defence proposal for a voir dire (essentially, a hearing within
a trial) to settle the matter of the admissibility of the crown’s binder and
other electronic evidence, Justice Cameron ruled that she would allow the
binder to be used for the day’s proceedings but, should she decide over night
that it was not to be allowed, she would disabuse herself of the evidence that
had already been presented to her.

Such mental gymnastics in the service of judicial objectivity
is quite a feat. It would not be allowed for witnesses or juries, mere mortals
all, but Justice Cameron’s thoughtful
and respectful approach to the trying tactics of both sides suggest that, if
anyone was up to the task, she was.

Her ruling was accepted by the defence, but then it didn't hold:
the defence again challenged the crown as it continued to use materials in the
binder as mnemonic aids when examining Mr. Hall. In the end, the crown
expressed concern that an invoice for $21,000, though created electronically,
only now exists in paper form, and that without a firm ruling from the court it
was hard to know how to proceed.

Justice Cameron concurred. In effect, the trial could not
continue without a ruling on the admissibility of the printed electronic
records, and that ruling could not come without deliberation. So, we wait until
the morning to find out how Justice Cameron will rule.

Del Mastro faces four charges, and McCarthy three, with a maximum sentence of five years in jail and a $5,000 fine upon conviction.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Podcast: Notes From The Underground

In the podcast Notes From The Underground TE Wilson discusses historical and contemporary attitudes toward crime. Each episode features a one-on-one interview that explores a unique topic. Interviewees include authors, experts, and individuals with personal experiences of crime. These podcasts were originally broadcast through the facilities of Trent Radio in Peterborough, Canada.

Mezcalero, a Detective Sánchez novel

Bicultural and transgender, detective Ernesto Sánchez seeks a missing Canadian woman on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Moving uneasily in a world where benign tourism co-exists with extreme violence, he becomes a pawn in a shadowy power-play between corrupt police and drug cartels. Forced to make hard choices – desperate, wounded, and friendless – Sánchez takes refuge in the lawless mountains of Oaxaca. And discovers his fate.

“Wilson’s Mezcalero is a real-pager turner…While the milieu of Wilson’s novel is reminiscent of the hard-boiled tradition, his creation of P.I. Ernesto Sánchez is original, and helps Wilson push the boundaries with respect to genre. Sánchez is a hard-hitting private eye, but Wilson also depicts him as struggling with many of the issues that transgender individuals typically face; in this manner, Wilson creates both a riveting mystery and timely story about navigating life as a gender nonconforming individual.”

“Mezcalero is a remarkable read, with sustained suspense, surprise explosions of poetry and violence, and some new answers to old questions...Wilson understands something about violence and gender that I have never encountered before: that women’s violence is perhaps the most feared. Sanchez’s womanly violence in his manly body is a mystery revealed, a truth told that we suspected all along. This is a profoundly feminist book. The women in the book are the power brokers, the activators of action; even the most oppressed empleada is a container of her own complete power. Mezcalero is deftly plotted, and deploys an acrobatic narrative that is, frankly, exhilarating. Sanchez has a lot to teach us. Wilson, too.”

Janette Platana, author of A Token of My Affliction (2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize; 2016 English Language Trilium Book Award finalist).

“T.E. Wilson’s Mezcalerois, as a novel, a tacit consequence of the author’s real-world work as a reporter/journalist in Mexico. His work is rich in essence, and rich in detail, of how widespread organized crime and corruption permeate Mexican society. Highly recommended. This is great, well-grounded fiction.”

Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia, Senior Research Scholar in Law and Economics, Columbia University, and President of the Citizens’ Action Institute (Instituto de Acción Ciudadana).

“T.E. Wilson has crafted a terrific, terrifying and yet sensationally witty portrait of modern Mexico. Detective Sánchez is irresistible. You won’t soon forget his journey through that unpredictable jungle that is Mexico today.”